Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy

On-line since: 15th March, 2010

By Rudolf Steiner

Translated from the German by Maria St. Goar
GA 204

In this history of the development of human consciousness, Steiner makes
the startling announcement that the world has already ended in the fourth
century A.D. Since then we have been living in an
increasingly spiritual world on a disintegrating, dying earth. We have
simply been asleep to this spiritual reality around us.

The seventeen lectures presented here were given in Dornach, Switzerland,
between April 2 and June 5, 1921. In the Collected Edition of Rudolf
Steiner's works in German, the volume containing the original texts is
entitled:
Perspektiven der Menschheitsentwicklung
(Vol. 204 in the Bibliographic Survey).
They were translated from the German by Maria St. Goar.

This volume is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf
Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

Materialism was justified
in the nineteenth century; clinging to it generates catastrophes.
Knowledge of the material world remains, theoretical
materialism must cease. The latter is a reflection of developments in
the nineteenth century when the physical body, particularly brain and
nervous system, had evolved into perfect replicas of soul and spirit,
while the etheric, dream producing force in man had diminished.
Moritz Benedikt and thinking that is completely immersed in the
physical. Shorthand. Today, physical, structural perfection has
passed its zenith.

Errors in mere thinking and
errors rooted in actuality. The latter, for example theoretical
materialism, can have a beneficial side for mankind. Structural
forces of the head are recognized by imagination; those of
rhythmic system by inspiration, those of metabolic system by
intuition. The nature of imagination; essence of reflective thinking;
objective perception. Knowledge and death.

Prior to Aristotle, process
of acquiring speech was still comprehended; hence, instinctive
awareness that the soul-spiritual element resounding in the word is
identical with the one that, having created nature in the world, has
become silent; also insight into pre-existence, still earlier, into
reincarnation. Path leading from fading out of ancient
word-comprehension to abstract spirituality of logic and
concept: logic of Aristotle; “nous” of Anaxagoras;
“idea” of Plato; Logos teaching of Gnosticism; Logos and
Christianity; Gospel of John. Fourth century
A.D. final loss of Logos knowledge. Conscious
reattainment through anthroposophy.

Until the fourth century
A.D., a form of Oriental astronomy and
medicine prevailed, acquired from a cosmic wisdom that
instinctively understood the etheric domain. This wisdom also
flowed into cultic life. Image of the Mithras cult; Christianity.
Dionysius the Areopagite; further advance of ancient wisdom
reaching to Basilius Valentinus, Jacob Boehme and Paracelsus. Since
Constantine and Justinian the Egypto-Roman “principle of
determination” penetrates association between truth and the
word; it cuts off any comprehension of Christianity based on
pre-Christian wisdom.

Transition in the fourth
century A.D. Nature of Greek culture, its
tragedy. The Occident pushes the wisdom of ancient Greece and the
Mithras cult back into the Orient. For the religious life of
the northern nations, factual narration of the events of
Palestine remains, also dogmas of the ecumenical councils necessary
for strengthening of I. The wisdom of the Orient penetrates
Europe in Arabism only as an intellectual culture. In some European
souls, the mystery of bread and wine is revived and with it that of
ancient astronomy and medicine. Its reality, concentrated in the
Grail Mystery, hovers over Western world turned materialistic;
it can only be discovered through inner questioning by the
individual. Titurel. External crusades to Jerusalem are renewed
materialistic distortion of this search.

The Oriental mind dwelt in
spiritual world and based on it had to comprehend material realm.
Europeans live in material world and based on it must seek to
understand spiritual domain. Transition from one to the other in
Greek culture. Gnosticism's problem to comprehend Christ in
Jesus. Suspension of this struggle due to nationalized Roman
Christianity. “Humanization” of Christianity in
Europe. The Heliand epic. Insensibility regarding higher
wisdom. Search for the Grail. Danger of being caught up in
materialism since fifteenth century. Soloviev's call for
Christianized state. Forces that hinder path of spiritual
activation; love of evil.

Friedrich Nietzsche's
philosophical development and tragedy as struggle against forces of
decline and a symptom of degree of spirit alienation during last
third of nineteenth century. Image of man, meaning of earth
life and nature of Christianity cannot be grasped any longer even by
Nietzsche; their distortion in the concept of “superman,”
the “eternal return of the same” and the
“Antichrist.”

Measure, number, weight:
examples of the loss of self and reality in a humanity on the way to
abstraction. Well into the second post-Atlantean epoch, numbers
were still experienced as qualities possessing living being, received
from cosmic totality by the astral body and imprinted into etheric
body. In third post-Atlantean epoch, measure was experienced as
the force proceeding from etheric body that forms the physical body
according to cosmic relationships; until the first, weight was sensed
as primal experience between I and astral body, perceptible
to mankind as condition of balance between being fettered to earth
and soaring upward. Last remaining aftereffects of these qualities
only in art.

The nineteenth century as
culmination in history of abstract spirituality and materialism
since fourth century. Dogma and ritual. Formerly: life in
the body that thus experienced cosmic spirituality; today:
life in the spirit that turns to matter and fails to recognize
itself. Different in Leibnitz's case. The power of comprehending
spiritual scientific concepts that the modern intellect can create
out of itself as possibility for transforming and enlivening of
rigid and inwardly indolent intelligence. The three forms of indolence:
neo-Catholicism, which preserves the old content in dogmas, Protestantism
with its compromise between tradition and intellect, and enlightened
intellectualism without spiritual content. Future polarization into
Catholic traditionalism and spiritually awakening intellectuality.

Necessity of reaching the
goal of each given level of evolution in individual life as well as
that of humanity. Goal of the fourth epoch was development of
intellectual soul; on basis of etheric body's activity, man awakened
from cosmic sensing to cosmic reason. Since fifteenth century,
etheric activity has completely impressed itself into physical body,
thinking turned into human, subjective shadow images, causing
separation into merely logical thinking and a will left to its own
devices and bound to desires and instinct. Overcoming of this
separation, for example, in Jesuitism. Necessity in the twentieth
century of bringing reality into shadowy thinking by way of the
human I so that it can dwell in transforming manner in the
social and economic world that has turned chaotic.

Significance of the year
1840 as point in time of actual dawning of consciousness soul. In the
various cultures, this dawning encountered different older forms of
consciousness: in England, a state of mind resembling ancient Homeric
Greece; in France, a partial legacy of the Latin intellectual soul
culture; in Italy, a portion of the ancient sentient soul culture;
in central Europe, a legacy from the fourth century
A.D. In Eastern Europe, this process has largely
been slept through. Oswald Spengler's
Prussianism and Socialism.

The two main streams of
nineteenth century: formally juristic Roman Catholicism on the part
of the Latin nations with their spiritual and ideological struggles
and, arising out of social and industrial practices, the economic
mode of thinking of the Anglo-Saxons with their problems of power.
Both streams are ultimately rooted in Persian culture,
Catholicism in the Ormuzd worship, the Anglo-Saxon element in
Ahrimanic initiations. Joseph de Maistre, the knowledgeable and
brilliant representative of ancient Catholicism; his battle
against the spirit coming into vogue since fifteenth century.
The necessary counterbalance and renewal through a free spiritual
life. Goethe's insight concerning this; his reaction to debate
between Cuviers and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

Earthly man's connection
with the planetary forces. As late as the fourth post-Atlantean epoch,
awareness of the ego development's link with sun; necessity today to
regain this insight. Polarity of sun and moon forces in structure of
earthly man. Differentiation of forces as noted through the process of
eating: effects of earthly forces, the circumference, moon, and sun
forces. Further differentiation of planetary influences in astral body:
besides the sun, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are effective in
“upper” man; in “lower” man, besides the
moon, Mercury and Venus. Constellation and earthly birth.

Materialistic science and
spiritual science as spiritual-cosmic events between moon's exit and
return. The spirit of natural science could give rise to a new kingdom
of nature between mineral and plant in the form of shadowy, living
spider beings that cover the earth in web-like fashion during the
latter's reunification with moon and lunar life. Humanity would thereby
be cut off from world's life and spirituality. Cultivation of spiritual
science facilitates arrival from other planets of spiritual beings who
are striving to come to earth since the end of the nineteenth century;
their activity becomes possible only by way of a thinking that grasps
living, ensouled elements. Path to this transformation: unification of
clear thinking with artistic perception in a science that simultaneously
will become art. Goethe's teaching of morphology; his “Hymn to
Nature”; Nietzsche's picture of the valley of death.

John Scotus Erigena's
thinking, an expression of a developmental metamorphosis between ancient
visionary and intellectual thinking. The aftereffects of “negative
theology” by Dionysius the Areopagite and Origen on the age of
Scotus. The four parts of the book
De divisione naturae:
the doctrine of God, doctrine of the
hierarchies, spirit doctrine of nature and man, eschatology; no
thoughts as yet on a social doctrine. Erigena's thinking: still
spiritual reality, already abstract concepts. Mirroring
of the knowledge of earlier cultural epochs in first three parts of
the book but not in chronological sequence; the fourth part: striving
of intellect at that time to comprehend Christianity and future
of humanity. Since fifteenth century this flows into the groundwork
of natural science. The contradiction of our age that actually
dwells in refined spirit but as to its contents has become
increasingly materialistic.

World decline and world
dawn. Erigena between old and new thinking. The Gospel of John as
testimony that Christ, the Logos, is creator of earthly realm. In
antiquity, the “Father principle” held sway: man
experienced himself in body and blood as the image of the divine
Father as represented in the tribal father of the generations; God
and Spirit held sway in earth and moon forces. First three parts of
Erigena's book tie in with this. Early Christian knowledge concerning
the nature of Father forces and Christ force. The Gospel of
John. Transition from pre-Christian blood sacrifices to
offering of bread and wine. The end of the world as decline of
ancient, body-bound spirit force took place in the fourth century. By
degrees, it always appears again in human consciousness; the mood of
the crusades; Alfred Suess; Oswald Spengler. Possibility of renewal
based on real spirit perception.

Transition in the fourth
century from the viewpoint of the changing life of the body; illness
and healing. Egypt: the body as part of earth's totality; necessity
of maintaining the body in harmonious relationship with earth's four
elements; its shape, the work of art by the I that is
independent of birth and death. Greece: the corporeal life as
expression of the soul-spiritual on this side which was
experienced as being almost identical with the living,
sculpturing system of fluids; the four kinds of fluids in the human
being. Rome: soul feels itself bound up in earthly existence. The
reflection of these transformations in development of the seven
sciences, from living revelation to abstraction. Entry of
Christianity. Julian the Apostate. Constantine.
Justinian. Displacement of living knowledge to East (Gondishapur).
Battle of consciousness between Avicenna and Averroes to
comprehend the I based on Aristotelianism as opposed to
Germanic direction. The task of anthroposophy.